It is hard for us to comprehend what the earth was like before God created light. In his book Riding Rockets, Space Shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane described how from space, the earth is “framed in a pre-Genesis black.” He goes on to explain: “There is no blackness on Earth to compare… not the blackest night, the blackest cave, or the abysmal depths of any sea.” Since I never made it into space, the blackest cave was the closest experience I had to seeing pre-Genesis black.
When I was a kid, my mom and dad took us on a tour inside a deep cave at Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. Deep in the bowels of the earth, the park ranger stopped us in an expansive part of the cave with a large vaulted ceiling. With a few minutes warning, he had the lights turned off so we could experience total darkness. Instantly we were thrown into the formless and empty darkness of Genesis 1:2.
When the lights went out, it was impossible to see anything. I had no way of knowing what was next to me or around me. There was no form, no definition to the space where I stood. Suddenly a light appeared. The ranger struck a single match and immediately the entire area and everyone in it came into view. It was astounding how that single match suddenly separated us from the darkness.
In Genesis 1:3-4 God says. “Let there be light.” Like that single act of striking a match, his command separated the light from the darkness. He brought form and shape to the world. It is the same light we can bring to this dark world. In the darkness of life, Christ is light that pierces the darkness, separating the darkness from the light. Even when we are in the midst of the deepest darkness of life, we can trust the light of Christ to bring form and shape to the void of a seemingly hopeless situation.
Throwback Thursday — This post originally published January 24, 2017.
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